


When Icarus Flew Too Close to the Sun

by cathema



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, One-sided Moceit - Freeform, i'm sorry huhu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26342044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathema/pseuds/cathema
Summary: As the embodiment of Thomas’s heart, Patton was subjected to the heavy burden of having so much love to give. And when he fell, he fell hard.He found himself falling at the mercy of a man he never once called family, whose morals were skewed and whose ideas were wicked, and would always leave you gambling whether to decide if his intentions were good or self-serving. Patton felt guilt and shame burning his morality as he sought comfort in this man’s teasing grin, his mismatched eyes, and his voice that dripped over his fingertips like honey.Patton had so much love to give, but he knew just how this story ends.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 3
Kudos: 33





	When Icarus Flew Too Close to the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic has been sitting on my computer for months and it's only now that I am bringing myself to publish it. The idea for this was pretty much the very first fic idea I ever had for the fandom because Moceit was my OG ship. Sadly, I love angst too much. Enjoy the story!

As the embodiment of Thomas’s heart, Patton was subjected to the heavy burden of having so much love to give. He doted on the other Sides as though they were his offspring, having watched them grow through the years as Thomas learned the ways of the world—how sublime and cruel it could be.

Patton had so much love to give that he often gave too much, like rain showers flooding dry land, sunlight stealing the breath of flower fields, and fire blazing quietly in a forest.

And when he fell, he fell hard.

He found himself falling at the mercy of a man he never once called family, whose morals were skewed and whose ideas were wicked, and would always leave you gambling whether to decide if his intentions were good or self-serving. Patton felt guilt and shame burning his morality as he sought comfort in this man’s teasing grin, his mismatched eyes, and his voice that dripped over his fingertips like honey.

The realization was slow and suffocating, like a rope that tightened around his neck with every tick of the clock. Every night, Patton would shut his eyes and whisper prayers to any god who’d dare hear him, but his words were always lost to the thunderous crashing of the waves inside his soul.

For a Side who vehemently opposed deception, Patton was an expert at concealing his own secrets. He smiled and laughed and cajoled with the others as he opened his arms to the two new additions to the once-perfect paradise he had created and bore the consequences on his own—afraid to confide in anyone, afraid to feel their condemnation, afraid to see their pity.

He couldn’t bring himself to turn away; he was a moth to a blue flame, reaching out for warmth, terrified yet desperate to feel its scorching kiss.

Janus had been with him when his family first fell apart at the seams; he also stayed with him as they built it back up again. Janus offered his shoulder for Patton to cry on; a hand to hold for courage; an ear to listen when his doubts overwhelmed him. Patton was shown kindness when he felt most vulnerable and lost, and that was his mistake. He clutched onto Janus like a lifebuoy thrown out at sea, but he was sinking further and further down with every graze of the skin across the kitchen table, every upward curve of pale lips, and every glint in his snake eye as though he saw through him. (He always did.)

Everywhere Janus was, Patton wanted to be. He busied himself at the kitchen when Janus read his newspaper at the dining nook; he listened to the soft hums of Janus’s music through the cracks of the wall; he basked in the nearness of Janus’s body as they sat side-by-side in silence by the television.

Patton can count the moments when he felt hope bubble in his chest—when Janus would momentarily tear down his facade and smile with genuine affection, or quietly offer words of pure honesty. But it was never a look Janus reserved for him; he’d seen that same smile around Roman, seen that same knowing look towards Logan, heard that same hesitant sincerity around Virgil.

It ached, it burned, it bruised; but Patton held on.

For Patton had so much love to give, but he knew just how this story ends.

Unbeknownst to all, Virgil was the most observant among the Sides. He stared, he watched, he bade his time, gathering whatever information he could use before he made his move.

Patton knew, the moment Virgil sat on the kitchen counter as he prepared breakfast that morning, that the one secret he desperately tried to hide had seeped through the cracks.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Virgil said, his voice unwavering.

“Of course, kiddo,” Patton replied.

Virgil waited patiently. The sounds of a whisk scraping the sides of a metal bowl and of batter sizzling in a pan under medium heat cut through the silence. Virgil would come to understand that Patton was a stubborn man.

“Will you tell him?” Virgil asked instead.

Patton shook his head slowly. “It isn’t the right thing to do.”

Virgil knitted his brows. “Not the right thing? What do you mean?”

Patton flipped the first pancake. It looked perfect, as they have irritatingly always been.

“He’ll blame himself,” Patton said simply. “He won’t be happy.”

“So you’d rather carry the burden alone?” Virgil bit his bottom lip. “You shouldn’t—I can’t let you do that. _You’d_ be unhappy.”

Patton kept his gaze on the pan.

“Are you afraid of what he’d do to you? ‘Cause I’ll protect you, Pat, I’ll make sure—”

“Could you pass the plate please?” Patton gestured towards the ceramic dish.

Virgil shut his mouth and did as told. He watched Patton flip the pancake onto the plate and pour the next portion.

He then hovered his hand over Patton’s and set it down, squeezing with reassurance. “This feeling will eat you alive,” he said quietly. “Is this really what you want?”

Patton looked at Virgil, a sad smile playing at his lips.

He allowed himself to lie just one time.

Every smile, laugh, and light graze of their skin sparked electricity through Patton’s veins. He wished he could get rid of this feeling, to rip open his chest and pluck out the parts in his heart that Janus had invaded. Instead, he buried himself underneath his covers, pushing out tears until his eyes itched.

Patton let himself think of selfish things during these moments alone in the dark. He considered how easy it would be if Janus could reprise his role as the villain in Thomas’s story—to reignite his scorn and turn him away once more. But Patton felt sick to the stomach for having even thought of such a horrid idea that he cursed at the cold air of his room, feeling the noose tighten faster in every second until he could no longer breathe.

That was how Logan found him one night, shuddering and gasping. Logan helped him count: 4-7-8, 4-7-8, 4-7-8, until the numbness of his arms and legs subsided.

Logan didn’t pry; he stayed clutching Patton’s cold hands until Patton spoke.

“How do you do it, Logan?”

“Would you please elaborate?”

“To not feel anything.”

Logan’s wince was not lost on Patton. “I _do_ feel.”

“But not love.”

“I show my love for all of you to the best of my abilities.”

Patton shook his head. “Sometimes, I wish we could trade places.”

Logan snaked an arm around Patton’s shoulders and sighed. “Patton, to be able to love so openly and vigorously is a fortunate experience to have that I will regrettably never understand—only because I physically cannot. Don’t wish for numbness. We will help you ease this pain if you let us.”

Patton laughed weakly. “How?”

“We will love you,” Logan said, as though it was the most obvious answer. “We will give you the love and care you need.”

But it’s not the love Patton wanted. But with Logan’s body so warm and calm against his, Patton was willing to try to make himself forget that it was.

When Icarus flew too close to the sun, was anyone there to catch him? When the wax, the feathers, and the sticks from his arms melted away to nothingness, who was there to hear his scream?

Patton sat across from Janus at the garden table to relish the morning breeze. The lemon tea he drank scalded his throat, but not enough to conceal the wobble of his voice as he giggled and joked to Janus’s usual musings.

He wondered if Janus also held onto these moments like a polaroid picture he’d look at again and again for comfort.

But Janus wasn’t like that. Patton had enjoyed enough private moments with him to know that he didn’t regard them with the same affection as Patton did. And Patton knew it was the truth, because Janus never once scrunched up his nose or hissed with contempt when Patton filled his head with these thoughts as Janus was known to do when he caught the others in a lie.

Patton was painfully aware of the carefully choreographed dance he did with Janus—the sidesteps, the shuffles, and the dips—moving dangerously close only to retreat. Patton danced around his feelings; Janus trailed behind to follow his lead.

They never talked about themselves when they were together. It was always about Thomas—if he was eating right, if he was taking adequate breaks, if he watered his plants that day.

Sometimes, when Patton pressed him, Janus would willingly talk about the other Sides. Only Patton was able to get him to talk so openly about their family, to lay his heart bare and admit his devotion to each one—how he enjoyed evening discussions with Logan, how he felt moved by Virgil’s willingness to repair their broken bond, how appreciative he was that Remus was finding a place in this home, and how he found thrill in Roman’s fits of passion.

“You love them,” Patton would say.

“Obviously not,” Janus would respond.

Janus never mentions Patton, as though he knew that, if he did, it would open up a whirlpool that would drag him into the depths of an unforgiving ocean.

Sometimes, Patton could feel the words tease the tip of his tongue. But he always altered it at the last second.

“We love you too.”

Janus glanced at him with a look that convinced Patton that nothing more needed to be said. Janus knew, he always had. But he can never give Patton what he wanted.

Janus was never his to own. Never his to hold. Never his to love fiercely and sublimely with all his heart.

“That’s unfortunate,” was all he said. And to Patton, it was enough.

Roman told him once that if he ever felt lonely, all he needed to do was look at the sky—see it for all its immensity and beauty and find peace with knowing that there were bigger mechanisms than them.

Patton could only wish it was easy.

“What do you do when you can’t look past the sun?” He asked.

“Just keep looking,” Roman declared, “and one day, you will.”

It would take Patton four months until he could. He woke up once and decided to scatter the pieces of his heart he reserved for a man who didn’t love him back to everyone else, the way he should have from the beginning.

Patton had so much love to give and, for the first time, he allowed himself to give it.

He cooked the most marvelous meals that made everyone sob, he cleaned the dust down the halls until they sparkled under the fluorescent light, he sang verses with Roman, sew blankets for Virgil, listened to Logan talk endlessly without once butting in, and stepped into Remus’s world without a flinch. He did it all—emptied himself so others could fill him up with the love he was too stubborn to receive from anyone else.

And when he was done, Janus gazed at it all with deep regard. “They don’t deserve you.”

If Patton didn’t know any better, he’d think Janus was referring to himself.

Patton stared at the sun and slowly saw the clouds that peeked behind it. And as he breathed in, he released the shame and guilt and pity he bore on his shoulders to welcome a wave of relief and gratitude and comfort in knowing that one day he’ll learn to fly again.

This was his first step.


End file.
